


Now We Are Stunned Minds

by SuburbanSun



Category: Why Not Me - Mindy Kaling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Based on the 'A Perfect Courtship In My Alternate Life' chapter of Why Not Me, F/M, Not RPF, Trapped In A Closet, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 00:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5518463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuburbanSun/pseuds/SuburbanSun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Mindy frantically changes clothes in a storage closet before a hot date, the last person she expects to walk in on her is cantankerous English teacher Sam Cook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now We Are Stunned Minds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Care](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Care/gifts).



> I have been itching to write fic for this since I saw it was nominated. When I felt like writing a treat, I remembered it and liked Care's letter a lot, so here we are! Hope you like it! 
> 
> Title from Flashed Junk Minds by Milky Chance.
> 
> Not sure that it fits neatly into a timeline, but could take place before the book chapter? Or could be slightly AU.

“Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh,” whined Mindy, stamping her foot a little childishly (though in her mind, it looked more assertive and devil-may-care than childish. Mindy had always wanted the phrase ‘devil-may-care’ to apply to her somehow).

Frazzled, her eyes darted around her empty classroom for something with which to blot the enormous red wine stain now covering her sweater and skirt. _Who thought serving red wine at parent-teacher night was a good idea, anyway?_

She grabbed the first thing she saw-- Henry Ellison’s midterm essay ( _It was a B-, anyway. Mediocre. Who cares.)_ \-- and began to rub at the stains. She frowned. The pinker Henry’s midterm became, the larger and more encompassing the stain seemed to be.

“What the hell, Henry!” She groaned in frustration and balled up the essay, throwing it toward the wastebasket and missing by several feet. “How the hell am I supposed to go on a date with the hot guy from my friend’s yoga class looking like _this_?” she muttered, frowning. She was _not_ about to miss her shot with Man-bun.

Suddenly she gasped, remembering the change of clothes she’d stashed in the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet for _just_ such an occasion.

“Mindy, you truly know yourself well.” She grinned, giving herself a mental pat on the back as she hurried over to the filing cabinet. Behind a few mostly-empty file folders, she found a pair of snakeskin patterned black leggings and a gauzy, low-cut cream top. “Whoa. Man-bun’s not gonna know what hit him.”

She pulled the clothes out and looked around her classroom again. The large windows cut into the double-doors made it a less-than-ideal place to strip naked (not that she hadn’t thought about it before, with former Vice Principal Aldean-- before he got arrested, of course).

She poked her head out into the hallway, which appeared to be empty now that parent-teacher night had ended. She made for the ladies’ room down the hall, and groaned again when she saw the telltale yellow janitor’s bucket blocking the door.

“Of course. You just _had_ to scrub the toilets _now,_ Big Jim.” She considered ducking into the men’s room, but the scent of urinal cake was a pervasive one-- she couldn’t go on a date with a new-age hottie with her hair and clothes smelling like the trough in a CitiField bathroom.

No, there was only one solution. The supply closet.

Mindy unlocked the door to the tiny room, grateful for once that every teacher in the school was trusted with a key to it. Once inside, she locked the door behind her and tugged on the cord hanging from the ceiling to turn on the dim light. Surveying her surroundings, she took in the stacks of dry-erase markers, the reams of printer paper, and the economy-sized containers of Clorox wipes. _This will have to do_.

She pulled her sweater over her head, only getting stuck in the neck hole briefly as she wrestled with the arms. She didn’t remember it being so snug that morning, but then, she’d been dressing with Man-bun in mind.

The tweed skirt came off next, shimmied down her hips and kicked to the side. She almost tripped as her wedge heel got caught in it, and had to catch herself on one of the plywood shelves.

“That was close, Mindy. Don’t want to fall and knock yourself out and die _before_ your date,” she muttered warningly. She took a moment to collect herself, turning around in just her bra and panties to pick up the clean clothes she’d set on a back shelf.

A noise at the closet door froze her in place. Before she could turn around, the lock turned, the door opened, and in walked Sam Cook.

Mindy screamed.

Sam screamed, too, his eyes widening as he took in the sight in front of him. Mindy’s momentum had carried her to fully face him, and he seemed to be having an inner struggle to keep his eyes trained on her face.

“What the hell, Sam!”

“I’m-- I’m sorry, I-- what in the--”

Mindy heard Big Jim’s signature whistle coming from the hallway-- clearly, he’d finished up in the ladies’ room and was about to walk down the corridor _right past the storage closet_. Panicked, Mindy reached out and grabbed Sam’s arm, yanking him further into the closet and kicking the door shut behind him.

For a moment, they just stood there, nearly chest-to-chest, breathing heavily and staring at each other in shock. Then Sam swiftly brought a hand up to cover his eyes.

“Why are you naked in the middle of the storage closet, Mindy?”

“I could ask you the same thing!” She put her hands on her hips indignantly.

“I’ve got all my clothes on.”

She huffed. “Yes, but _why are you in the storage closet_? School’s over! Go home! It’s occupied!”

Sam separated his index and middle fingers so he could peek out at her, and she could tell the look on his face was dubious at best. “I needed more pens. Mine ran out of ink. That doesn’t explain why you came in here and took off all your clothes, waiting for just anybody to come find you.”

“I was not waiting for just anybody!”

He frowned, closing his fingers again so he could no longer see her. “Were you waiting for me?”

Mindy’s jaw dropped. “No! I wasn’t waiting for anybody at all! I was _changing clothes_! Madison Yelken’s hot Polish nanny knocked into me and made me dump my malbec all down my outfit! I had to change, and the bathroom was being cleaned.” She suddenly realized how exposed she was, and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I have a date,” she said softer.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you… make a habit of parading around in your bra and underpants in your place of employment?” His tone was teasing, and she thought she saw the corner of his mouth quirk up in a little smirk. _The jerk._

“Okay, so many things wrong with that statement,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “First, I am not _parading_. This is not Sixth Avenue on Thanksgiving Day, it’s a _storage closet_. Do you think the dry erase pens mind if they get a little free show? _No._ They love it.”

He chuckled, but didn’t say anything, so she continued.

“Number two. Nobody under the age of grandpas calls them _underpants_.”

“Duly noted.”

“And number three!” She faltered for a moment, trying to remember where she was going with this critique. “Oh, right. Number three! This is not my place of employment-- again, this is a _storage closet_ . Nobody who employs me or is employed _with_ me can see what I’m doing in here. Except you, apparently, Mr. I-Desperately-Need-A-Fresh-Bic-At-8-o’Clock-At-Night.”

Her smile was smug; she’d won that round, for _sure_.

Sam slowly reached out with the hand that wasn’t covering his eyes. Mindy stilled, brow furrowed. Was he reaching for her? Oh God. His hand was getting closer and closer to her face. Was he trying to cup her cheek? Was he going to _kiss her_? Was he trying to _seduce her_ in a storage closet at school? _Whoa. That’s like, half my sexual fantasies during my student teaching year._

At the last minute, his hand bypassed her face entirely and reached directly behind her, pulling a 30-count box of Bic blue-ink ballpoints down from a shelf behind her head, and she let out a slow breath.

Sam shook the pens in front of her face. “Got ‘em.”

“Good.”

“I’ll get out of your hair, then,” he said, losing his teasing tone and sounding a bit awkward. “Oh, and Mindy?”

“What?”

“Um. There might be cameras in here.” He backed away from her, one hand still covering his eyes and the other fumbling for the doorknob. “I don’t know for sure, of course, but Kimmy Addison’s parents donated that security grant for the school last semester, so… just, be advised.”

He managed to open the door as she gawked at him, and with a nod, he left her alone. She thought she saw him pull his hand from his eyes just before the door closed, but she didn’t really care. _Cameras?_ She looked up at the ceiling, and at each corner of the room, seeing nothing that looked like a camera, but NannyCams could get _really_ small, couldn’t they?

Mindy sighed, finally pulling on her leggings and top. _Time to find Big Jim and see if he knows any of the guys who work in security_. Man-bun would have to wait.


End file.
